Apache Hive Cookbook

Using string data types

Hive supports three types of String data type, STRING, VARCHAR, and CHAR:

• STRING: It is a sequence of characters that can be expressed using single quotes (') as well as double quotes (").
• VARCHAR: It is variable-length character type. It is defined using a length specifier, which specifies the maximum number of characters allowed in the character string. Its syntax is VARCHAR(max_length). The value of the varchar data type gets truncated during processing if necessary to fit within the specified length. While converting the string value to the varchar value, if a string value exceeds the length specifier, then the string gets silently truncated. The maximum length of varchar type is 65355.
• CHAR: It is fixed-length character ...